


'Tis the Holiday

by orange_8_hands



Series: Second Generation Roll Call [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 5 Things, Abandonment, Case Fic, Daddy Issues, F/M, Gen, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-09
Updated: 2012-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 06:03:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_8_hands/pseuds/orange_8_hands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how they celebrate holidays now</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Tis the Holiday

_This is New Year's Eve now:_

It's five below freezing and the ground is harder than fucking rocks. Claire wants a jack hammer or excavator or for it to be tomorrow already, rolled into a motel comforter and taking five more minutes, because they've gotten less than two feet down in the last four hours, and even if they make it the rest of the way her hands are gonna be too frozen to light a match. The only good thing they have going is the ghost doesn't seem to care they want to toast his bones like the good little hunters they are, but then the ghost spent its life in freeze-your-tits-off Zimmerman, Minnesota, so maybe he wanted a little flame to get warm.

"I hate you," Claire said, leaning against her shovel to hold her up. "I hate you so much."

"Just keep digging," Ben muttered, tossing another (little) handful of dirt aside.

"I suggested San Diego. I suggested Miami. I found us a hunt in Flagstaff. I found us two possibilities in Austen. And where are we?"

"In the land of shutting up?" Ben asked, because he was an _asshole_.

"In a frozen wasteland. A frozen wasteland you picked out. Can you explain that Ben? Because I really am curious if any logical thought went into your head when you suggested we try to dig up a frozen grave. Any at all."

"Logical like four people have been killed and we can stop this?"

She made a buzzer noise. "And the people in Flagstaff were holding hands and singing Kumbaya? Try again."

Ben panted softly and leaned against his own shovel. "What, and you're just noticing the cold? Why are you bothering me about it now?"

Claire pointed a glove-stuffed finger at him. "I am hoping my voice will create some minor miracle and make you realize we have a better chance of freezing out here than finishing this job without machinery. Let me know when my logic and/or grating tone get to you." 

Ben laughed softly. "Claire, I know it seems like I-" he started, then cut himself off when his watch beeped. He glanced down, then smirked. "Hey, you want a kiss to start off the New Year?"

"As opposed to what, a punch?"

But she came over and gave him a smacking kiss on his lips, and if she then pushed him into the (barely two feet) hole, well, he still hadn't said it was time to get somewhere fucking warm, and she's pretty sure her lips are fucking _blue_.

 _This is Fourth of July now:_

"One, we still don't know what this is," Ben said, dissembling the pieces of his gun to clean them off. "Two, it's too early in the night to go. And three, your arm is still fucking broken."

Claire clicked back to the late night infomercial. It's not like she cooked (or had a kitchen), but there was something hypnotic about watching the Ninja Kitchen Blender, and it's been five nights in various motels seeing it chop and blend and whisk and make this soothing blender noise. They just picked up the latest batch of cards, so it's not like Mr. Kevin Patterson or Mrs. Lulu Evans or any of the others couldn't cover it.

"One, we may not figure out what it is anyways, and fire and silver can usually cover it," Claire said, not taking her eyes off the attachable blades. "Two, tonight there will be fireworks, including over the park where people keep disappearing because this town's mayor is stupid, making a nice noise cover if we have to shoot the fucking thing. And three, my arm's still gonna be broken two nights from now, so what's it matter?"

Ben paused, watching the blender liquidize strawberries. "Okay, you may have a point." Peaches joined the strawberries. "You do realize you've been watching this commercial all week, right?"

"No, I have selective amnesia. Of course I remember, I'm the one watching it."

"And that we can't actually fit a blender between the knives and guns."

"I worry this is as close as you're going to come to wit."

Ben made a noise of protest. "I'm just saying-"

"Please shut up, Captain Obvious. She's about to throw in the Super Pit Peeler for free."

"Is this like, some kind of biological urge or something?"

Claire tore her gaze away from the (two!) Super Pit Peelers being offered. "Please don't tell me you've always been this stupid and I'm just noticing. Please just say this is from the concussion on the last job." 

He glanced back at the TV, then back to her. "Christo," he finally said, and actually _threw holy water on her_.

 _This is Halloween now_ :

"Ok, what the fuck was that?"

"I don't know, I really don't fucking know. Did you see its eyes?"

"Its eyes? I was a little focused on its _claws_ , Claire."

"Its eyes were scarier."

"And unless they can shoot lasers its claws were _deadlier_ and can we please save this fucking discussion for after we kill it?"

"Yeah, good point. Ok, maybe if one of us circles around - away from the _eyes_ \- and the other uses the machete?"

"It didn't exactly have a head to chop off though. Maybe we light it on fire?"

"With what gas?"

"We really need to start bringing some lighter fluid when we-"

"Ben, now is also not the time for inventory."

"Right. Ok, plan A is machete, and Plan B is..."

"Poke its eyes out with a sharp stick?"

"Yeah, let's go with that."

Grunts. A quick yell to duck. A very long, heart felt "Fuck." A squeak Ben would deny to his last days. A heavy thud of the body. 

Panting.

"I can't believe that worked."

" _I told you_ its eyes were scarier."

 _This is Mother's Day now_ :

Claire was sprawled out against one of the beds, waving her hand in front of her face. Ben was slumped over in the chair, head barely held up in his hands. One empty bottle was carelessly tossed on the floor, the last drop of tequila (Claire's) on the edge of dripping out. Another sat in front of Ben and still held two swallows of whiskey.

"I am soooo drunk," Claire slurred, still waving her hand. "So, so fucking drunk."

With a lot of effort, she rolled over slightly to face Ben. "Drunkity drunk drunk. Are you drunk Ben?"

"Fuck what the fuck was I supposed to do? He didn't even teach me a fucking exorcism spell. Why the fuck didn't we get the tattoos? Why the fuck didn't he tell us to get the tattoos?" He dropped his head to the table, felt the slightly dusty wood against his forehead, cool against his flushed skin. His voice was lower than usual, hoarse from the drink or the tears that were steadily falling. "Why the fuck did he let it follow him home?" 

Claire rolled back onto her back. She did not want to think about her mother or her mother's voice or her mother's hands or her mother's arms in the best kind of hugs. She did not want to think about the first time she saw a demon in her mom, in the last time she saw a demon in her mom, in the burning flesh of dead mom. She did not did not did not want to think about any of it.

"Drunk," she finally said, like that could keep Ben and all his emotions on that side of the room, all his memories, all his what ifs and could have beens. Like drunk was a shield, like drunk was a wall sorrow couldn't climb. 

"Drunk," she mumbled, and started to cry for her mom.

(They don't talk about it the next morning, just grab sunglasses and the breakfast hangover cure and spend the rest of the day in the motel sleeping it off.)

 _This is Father's Day Now_ :

Slick bodies, scarred skin, harsh hands, grabbing, digging, leave bruises, leave pain, teeth to necks and shoulder blades, finger tips to hips, push in and steady rhythm, hard pace, get it out, get it out, just get out of your head and into the smell, the sounds, little hitches of breath, orgasms hit like mack trucks.

Wanted now, when you weren't before.

(They don't talk about this day either.)


End file.
